


stardust on her shoulders

by hubblestars



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 22:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubblestars/pseuds/hubblestars
Summary: The Ninth Doctor checks up on Rose.





	stardust on her shoulders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UntemperedWolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UntemperedWolf/gifts).



> for the best friend in the world<333 happy birthday kit kat!!

Rose pauses by the supermarket freezers.

She’s got one hand stuffed into the pocket of her jacket; her fingers twirl around a ripped bus ticket she bought a few days ago, from when she’d went to a bar with Mickey and smiled wide while she sang karaoke. Her hair falls around her face in long, blonde, waves, so she’s tucked it behind her ears, and thus it doesn’t bother her as she leans into the freezer to look for a cheap pizza, maybe, or a microwaveable meal.

Someone taps her shoulder. Hard. Rose jumps and almost slams her face in the freezer door.

“Watch it!” She yells. When she turns around with her eyebrows narrowed there’s a man leaning on a freezer watching her; she notices his ears, first, and then the glint in his eyes, but she’s too busy trying to shake off the shock to closely observe his face. “Yeah? Do I know you?”

The man smiles like he does know her - smiles like he can see stars sparkling on her face, planets orbiting her head, stardust on her shoulders. Rose isn’t used to being looked at. Life at home with Jackie is bustling around at work and running errands and spending evenings in blankets watching TV; this is a world where she’s plain and simple. A world where no one looks.

“Nah,” The man says, and holds out her favourite microwaveable meal. His smile widens into something cheeky and bright - and Rose wonders why it seems like they’ve had a million moments together.

“Ta.” She says, slowly.

“See you around, Rose Tyler.” The man says, and then he’s gone. Rose vaguely wonders how he knows her name, but she’s too distracted by the child yelling in the bread aisle to think anything of it.

*

On her way to work, Rose likes to pass through the park.

Especially when it’s sunny. Among the trees the sunlight seems brighter; it glints on the backs of dog fur and flowers. Rose sometimes just lets summer wash over her like this, where she can smile and observe before the rush of the day and the yelling of her boss shifts into focus. The park isn’t anything perfect; it’s not even special, Rose always thinks, when she eyes the teenagers hanging around in the trees, or the pieces of gum stuck to the pathways. But it’s a moment of fresh air in her grey world. A glimmer of green.

That morning, though, everything is colourless. Autumn seems to have properly settled in, and Rose isn’t faring well in the cold. She’s already spilled hot coffee down her white blouse, so it’s painted a dull shade of brown, and she can feel the start of rain, little droplets landing on the end of her nose. Rose almost doesn’t want to pass through the park, but she’s at the gate and walking through it out of habit before she can think.

Out in the grass a gardener has raked a pile of leaves, and Rose spots a man standing by it. He spots her and kicks it, red and orange and yellow and brown leaves falling around his head like a scene of out of those stupid movies Jackie and Rose always ridicule. Rose can hear his laugh from here. Infectious.

“Join me!” He yells. Rose shakes her head, giggling into her coat.

“You’re mad!” She laughs. The random man is just a bright spot that lightened up her bad morning, after that, and nothing else.

*

Rose gets the parcel three days after her birthday, months before she’s met The Doctor.

It’s one of those nights where she’s tired and her glass of wine hasn’t settled yet, so she’s restless and twitchy rather than giddily relaxed like she wants to be. Rose has curled in her pink blanket, fluffy enough that she’s warm and cozy, and she’s been watching this stupid reality show for hours now, long enough that her brain is numb. Jackie is out, and Rose has never felt so lonely.

Like the universe can sense how alone she is, there’s a knock on the door as soon as the feeling of loneliness rises. When Rose opens the door into the cool night, all she hears is retreating footsteps. There’s a parcel on her doorstep.

It’s wrapped in a dark blue bow and there’s a bracelet inside. It looks handmade, and it has beads of rainbow colours; Rose slips it on her wrist. Then she finds a postcard, with an image printed on it from a place she’s never seen before. It’s a glittering world which she thinks must’ve been painted.

The postcard just reads _wait_ in scrawled writing. It’s like a promise. A little bit of magic on her doorstep. Rose feels strong, from that moment on.

*

The only coffee shop Rose likes is rather far from her workplace.

When she stumbles inside the door, and the bell jangles, she’s feeling flustered. The wind has whipped her hair into what looks like a birds nest, and her cheeks are red from the cold as she stands in the queue; even the gentle buzz of the coffee shop and the warm scent of coffee can’t soothe her. Rose plays with the rainbow bracelet on her wrist, rocking back and forth on her heels. She wishes for peace and quiet, her head still ringing from the long day at work that she was only halfway through.

“Rose, isn’t it?” The man at the counter says. Rose feels like she’s seen him before, can recognise something in his face. Maybe it’s the glint in his eye, she thinks, as she hands over her change. She recognises the curve of his smile as he lightly presses his index finger on the inside of her wrist for just a second, and runs it subtly over the beads that had mysteriously showed up at her house a few months before.

“Nice bracelet.” He says, and winks. Rose feels like she’s part of an inside joke that she’s somehow forgotten.

*

So when this crazy man, The Doctor, is running with her, and Rose is feeling more alive than she’s ever felt in her life, it doesn’t feel.... new. His hand, the glint in his eye, the curve of his smile and the turn of his ears are familiar to her. She doesn’t know why until she looks up into his face and the world clicks into place. The man at the shop and the man in the leaves and the parcel on her doorstep and the coffee shop...

All this time, he’s been two feet from her.

Why, she thinks to herself later, when she’s become his companion and she’s lying awake on an unfamiliar bed staring at the roof of the TARDIS. Why would a man who could go anywhere, who could do anything, be so interested in boring, normal Rose Tyler?

Rose never asks.

*

When Rose lies under the stars on her back, with pink sand underneath her, she wants to hold The Doctor’s hand.

The whole universe is glittering above her, yet she can only see a handful of stars. They can see more here than on earth, The Doctor says, but even though he tells her facts and figures about the constellations Rose tunes him out and just breathes. They’ve known each other for too many years to be shy, Rose thinks, as she intertwines their fingers, but her heart still flickers a little when he squeezes her hand.

“Penny for your thoughts?” The Doctor asks, and Rose smiles at the way he talks like he’s a human, like he’s got a normal job and a boring life. Perhaps in this world they’re married. Domestic and uncomplicated.

“I love it here.” Rose breathes through a smile. “It reminds me of home.”

Rose turns on her side to look at him. Away from the stars.

“Why were you around so much, before? Wasn’t it dangerous to like, the fabric of the universe, or something?”

Before. Before The Doctor was a period of Rose’s life that had only snippets of colour - now every day is a burst of wonder, a different shade of colour every day. Rose tries to play it off with a laugh - tries to make this thing, this unsaid secret between them, trivial. But as she speaks she can feel her voice crack and The Doctor looks trapped. He’s not one for talking about his feelings, Rose thinks fondly, as he coughs uncomfortably.

“I just checked up on you, once in a while. I was there whenever you needed me.” The Doctor says roughly. It’s his way of saying I love you, Rose thinks. “Or whenever I needed you.”

“Softie.” Rose teases. But when The Doctor kisses her forehead she melts. Moments like these make Rose feel like she’s running with him for the first time. Or that she’s watching leaves fall around his head.

Rose always thought, secretly, that before The Doctor her life hadn’t meant anything at all. But he’d checked up on her so often even before Rose had known him - he’d lived in the corners of her life until he was ready to come to the centre of it. How strange that Rose couldn’t see the stardust on her shoulders, but The Doctor had known every speck of dust before she’d even known his name.


End file.
